Key Facts
- Period
- c. 753 – c. 509 BC
- Duration
- ~244 years
- Number of kings
- 7 (by tradition)
- Founding location
- Palatine Hill, along the river Tiber
- Successor state
- Roman Republic (c. 509 BC)
Imperial Zenith Metrics
Historical Trajectory
Phase I: Rise
According to Roman tradition, the city of Rome was founded c. 753 BC by Romulus, with early settlements clustered around the Palatine Hill beside the Tiber in central Italy. The early kings, whether Latin, Sabine, or Etruscan in origin, consolidated surrounding communities, established the Senate, defined the curiate assembly, and began organizing Roman religious and military institutions that would define the city's character for centuries.
Phase II: Zenith
Under later kings, particularly the Etruscan Tarquin dynasty, Rome expanded its influence across the Latin plain and developed urban infrastructure including drainage systems and monumental temples. The city grew into a regional power in central Italy, engaging in wars with neighboring Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan peoples while cultivating trade and refining legal and religious customs that underpinned civic life.
Phase III: Decline
Tradition holds that the tyrannical rule of Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and final king, provoked a aristocratic revolt c. 509 BC led by Lucius Junius Brutus following the rape of Lucretia. The monarchy was abolished, and power transferred to two annually elected consuls, inaugurating the Roman Republic. The historical veracity of these accounts is uncertain, as surviving sources date from centuries after the events.
Notable Imperial Reigns
Selected rulers mapping the empire’s trajectory